Crédit Agricole SA appoints Olivier Gavalda as Managing Director, replacing Philippe Brassac
The board of directors of Crédit Agricole SA on Tuesday chose Olivier Gavalda to occupy the position of general manager of the listed entity of the French mutual banking group following the general meeting of May 14, 2025, according to a press release from the group .
“Meeting on December 17, 2024, the Board of Directors of Crédit Agricole SA, under the chairmanship of Dominique Lefebvre, and on the proposal of the Appointments and Governance Committee, decided to appoint Olivier Gavalda as Chief Executive Officer of Crédit Agricole SA, following the General Meeting of May 14, 2025,” the bank said in a statement,
Olivier Gavalda will replace Philippe Brassac, general manager of Crédit Agricole SA since May 2015, who was reached by the age limit for exercising his functions statutorily set at 65 years by the company.
“The transition within the general management of Crédit Agricole SA will be organized over the coming months,” Crédit Agricole said in the press release.
Olivier Gavalda is Deputy Managing Director of Crédit Agricole SA, in charge of universal banking since November 2022, and notably led Crédit Agricole d’Ile-de-France for more than six years.
If Olivier Gavalda was considered a favorite from the start, his age – 61 when he took up the post – raised questions for some as to his ability to act over a period of “only” four years while Philippe Brassac stayed for 10 years. at the head of the group’s listed entity
The future general director was preferred in the home stretch to Gérald Grégoire, deputy general director of Crédit Agricole SA in charge of the customer and development division since July 2023, and Stéphane Priami, general director of Crédit Agricole personal finance & mobility since January 2020 .
Jean-Paul Mazoyer, deputy general manager in charge of technologies, digital and payments since 2021, Jérôme Grivet, deputy general manager in charge of management and control functions since September 2022, and Michel Ganzin, general manager of Crédit Agricole d ‘Ile-de-France since November 2022, had been excluded further upstream in the race for the position.
The new general director of the third French bank in terms of market capitalization, with a published net profit share of the group of 6.3 billion euros in 2023 for a net banking income of 25 billion euros, will take the reins of a group facing many challenges.
Crédit Agricole SA, majority owned by the 39 regional banks of Crédit Agricole, is present in savings management and insurance, local banking with LCL, wealth management and even internationally. The Crédit Agricole group as a whole and its 154,000 employees generated 8.2 billion euros in profits in 2023 for more than 36 billion euros in revenue.
Olivier Gavalda will notably have to clarify the situation of the bank’s activities in Italy, where Crédit Agricole holds 15.1% of the capital of Banco BPM and could rise to 19.99%, while UniCredit is trying to get its hands on its counterpart.
The current deputy general manager should also have on the table the disengagement of Crédit Agricole in the payments specialist Wordline, of which he holds 7% of the capital, and could encourage his asset manager Amundi, almost 70% owned by the group Crédit Agricole, to play the role of consolidator.
Above all, he will be in charge of Crédit Agricole’s new strategic plan, the previous roadmap having drawn up guidelines until 2025, in a context where retail banking and insurance are suffering from macroeconomic conditions.
(Written by Bertrand De Meyer, edited by Tangi Salaün)
